I have to admit, I LOVE, love, LoVe the Canon Powershot A510. I actually bought it for my dad. But, looks like dad’s going to get hold of it .... sometime in the near (far!) future :)
I happened to buy this camera because I was looking for a cheap, reliable point and shoot camera for my parents who are amateur photographers. I stumbled across a great deal on this camera and after checking that it had satisfactory reviews on my fav digicam site (https://steves-digicams.com/), I decided to spring for it. Admittedly, the Canon A85, 95 are models with higher MP resolution and maybe, greater optical zoom lenses, but this is a very inexpensive model offering (almost) the same features. I mean, who needs 4MP anyway! ;) Anyway, after I received it I just absolutely HAD to test it and hence this review.
The A510 is a 3.2MP camera with 4x optical zoom and a 3.2x digital zoom. It’s the March 2005 follow-up to the very popular Canon Powershot A75, and is smaller in size and has a higher optical zoom than the A75, which had about 3x zoom. The camera is small (ok, it’s not a credit card sized one), it fits neatly into the palm and is really lightweight (~180gms). By lightweight I mean that it is possible to take pictures even by holding it in one hand without any jitter being introduced. Believe me this
is a BIG deal, after the other cameras I have, a fujifilm one which I dont remember the model of, and the pentax optio MX.
The features review will concentrate on the point and shoot features as I am only a beginner photographer. This is the first time that I have owned a Canon so the number of modes available for point and shoot really amazed me. The modes are as follows: Auto, Night Sky, Portrait, Fast Shutter, Slow Shutter, Landscape, Special Scene Modes (Foliage, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Underwater, Indoor, Kids and Pets, Night Snapshot), Stitch Assist and Movie. The pictures in each of the modes (I havnt tried
the special scene modes) are very clear and great to look at. I took photographs of
fireworks in the night and they came out really well!! But, the mode that seems to be developing into my most fav one is the stitch assist. In the stitch assist mode it is possible to take wide pictures of panoramas by ’stitching’ together more than one picture. This requires a little trial and error as adjoining pictures need to overlap by 1/3 and they need to be taken at the same height. I made a lot of errors the first time that I tried using this mode, to take a 360 degree view of my living room, but even then the software is pretty smart and it was able to combine the pictures with few errors. The night sky, portrait and landscape are the familiar, but good to have modes and they do not disappoint. The software that comes with the box is pretty good for image
browsing and viewing. I havnt tried to print with the camera as yet. The movie mode records movies with sound for upto 3 mins, but then if you wanted a longer recording time go for a videocamera! The sound recording is pretty clear, much more so than the one produced by my pentax. I found the 4x zoom pretty satisfactory for what I was trying to focus on.
The camera has an optical viewfinder and also a display screen. Of course, keeping the display on or using the flash uses up a lot of the batteries. The batteries needed for this camera are 2 AA batteries. But, get rechargeables and you neednt worry about splurging on them. I like the decision to go with AA batteries as I dont have to worry about power adapters in different countries. For people who like a bit more
flexibility in using the cameras, like changing ISO and all that mumbo jumbo
there are a couple of manual features too but might be best to look at some other review for that. The camera accepts both SD cards and MMC cards.
Finally, the powershot A510 is a really inexpensive, great camera for the beginner photographer. Get some NiMH rechargeables, a 512 MB (or greater) SD card and enjoy clicking !!
What’s in the box
The kit includes Interface Cable IFC-400PCU, AV Cable AVC-DC300, Wrist
Strap WS-200, SD MultiMediaCard MMC-16M and two AA-size Alkaline
batteries as well as Canon Digital Camera Solution Disc Version 22, featuring
the latest versions of Canon’s powerful software and ArcSoft
PhotoStudio.
What I paid
I paid about $150 (approx INR 6450) for the camera itself and $27 (approx
INR 1161) for the 512 MB memory card.